


russian roulette isn't the same without a gun (if it isn't rough it's not fun)

by blackrose1002, BlackVultures



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Title: Kent's a Dick, Angry Serbians, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Mission Fic, Mutual Pining, Past Rape/Non-con, Pining, original character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-08 21:31:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18903040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackrose1002/pseuds/blackrose1002, https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackVultures/pseuds/BlackVultures
Summary: And Kent might’ve been many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. “So you two seem… close,” he commented, leaning against the wall of the elevator like that was what he intended to do in the first place. “Tell me, Dalton, how do you like working with MacGyver? Isn’t he… special?”Jack felt his right hand twitch down by his leg, wanting to reach for his gun but leashing the impulse. The tone of Kent’s voice, the emphasis he put onspecial… it made Jack’s blood boil, something old and ugly crawling down his spine. He wasn’t stupid either, far from it, and he knew it was up to him to carry the conversation since the way Mac was literally trying to claw a hole in his back indicated he wasn’t in a good place.(Also known as: The show hasn't told us why Mac doesn't like guns. This fic tells us why.)





	russian roulette isn't the same without a gun (if it isn't rough it's not fun)

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, what's this? A fic written by [blackrose1002](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackrose1002/pseuds/blackrose1002) and I that has plot and substance to it? Did you guys think this was going to happen or did you think it was going to be porn forever? Be honest! :P Anyway, we really hope you enjoy this little glimpse into why Mac doesn't like guns... and please know there's a lot of MacDalton goodness in here to offset all the bad stuff. **But PLEASE heed the tags/warnings if you're sensitive to that type of content! the non-consensual sex DOES NOT take place between Mac and Jack, and neither of us thinks the description of what happened between Mac and Kent was particularly graphic, but if you have doubts I might skip this one.** This was written by both of us, but I was the one who put it all together, so any remaining mistakes are my own. Be sure to let us know what you think!
> 
> (Title is from "Poker Face" by Lady Gaga, but I prefer the version by First to Eleven.)

__

"Listen up, people,” Matty said as she entered the war room on a typical Friday morning at the Phoenix Foundation.

The people in question were Mac, Jack, Riley, and Bozer, and until Matty’s arrival they’d been discussing the finer points of _Star Trek_ versus _Star Wars_ , with a terrible Picard impression from Bozer and Jack slowly sliding into his Wookie persona.

“We've been tasked with rescuing a United States intelligence asset that's currently stuck in Bucharest,” Matty continued once they all fell silent. “He was in Romania collecting intel about gun smuggling from Germany to the Ukraine, but someone made him. When he called for exfil the chopper that came to get him was downed and the asset was forced to retreat back into Bucharest for cover. Your job is going to be to get him from Bucharest to the new exfil location, an abandoned farm near the border with Bulgaria."

Mac put his hands on his hips, and Jack tried hard not to look at the muscle definition in his forearms. "Who's the asset?"

"You might actually know him, Mac," Matty said, and a government headshot came up on the big screen. "Special Agent Fredrick Kent, former army lieutenant, decorated war hero - and now a valuable asset to our counterterrorism efforts."

Kent looked to be around Jack’s age, maybe a little younger, with the harsh bone structure and freckled skin that spoke of Irish or Scottish heritage. He had thin, sandy hair parted carefully off his forehead, a thin nose, and flat gray eyes. He struck Jack as the type of guy who’d probably never had any fun in his entire life and might in fact be allergic to it.

Mac’s reaction to the picture was… subtle, but Jack was standing next to him and he noticed it immediately. Mac’s jaw clenched, and his fists did the same before he purposefully relaxed them, but the set of his shoulders stayed tense. Those big blue eyes Jack had been hopelessly in love with for years were fixed on the screen.

"Know him how?" Jack asked, after an awkward pause in which everyone had expected Mac to say something.

Mac glanced at Jack, and there was something wounded in his eyes that he hid as quickly as it appeared. "Kent was my lieutenant after I left boot camp, before I became an EOD tech. He's... I'm not surprised he went into intelligence work."

And there was something... _off_ about Mac's voice, like he was purposefully trying to keep it casual. That set off alarm bells in Jack's brain, but he didn’t comment on it because he knew Mac wouldn't want that with all the people in the room. "So when are we leaving?" Jack asked instead, looking at Matty and then at the photo on the screen—yep, the guy even _looked_ like a dick.

"You and Mac are leaving right now," Matty replied. "As far as anyone in Bucharest is concerned you two are tourists, just passing through on your way to Greece. Riley and Bozer will monitor comms from here."

Mac looked at the face on the screen one final time before he nodded at Matty and said, "Let's go."

He turned and fist bumped Bozer goodbye as he pushed through the door, but Jack's Mac-senses were going haywire. And Jack followed him, but Mac was halfway to the elevators when Jack caught up—the kid was fast when he wanted to be.

"Hey, man, wait up." Jack said, finally reaching him. "You okay? You seemed... tense, back there." He _still_ seems tense, Jack adds mentally, but decided to play it safe for now.

Mac got in the elevator but waited for Jack before pressing the button for the garage. "I'm fine. Just wasn't expecting to see Kent again."

"You two got history or somethin'?" Jack asked, shooting for casual, not wanting to spook Mac because he knew there was more to the story. Seeing a picture of someone from the past wouldn't cause that reaction if they were just acquaintances back then.

"Well, you know how lieutenants can be," Mac said. "He... we didn't get along very well." He crossed his arms and leaned against the back wall of the elevator. "I don't know much about him, other than he went out of his way to be an asshole."

Jack hummed in acknowledgement because he knew _exactly_ how lieutenants could be, and as much as he wanted to know more he also knew that getting this much out of Mac when he was clearly shaken up was a miracle. But he couldn’t help the rush of protectiveness that went through his body at the thought of some lieutenant being an asshole to Mac.

And there was no way in hell Jack wasn’t getting this story out of Mac, one way or another.

 

~***~

 

Things were quiet between them until they got to the car, and then they were kind of quiet until they were on the Phoenix jet—Jack scream-singing along to Judas Priest didn’t count and never would. Once they were on the plane, Mac threw his go-bag in the overhead bin and heaved himself into a seat... and it'd been a while, he realized, since he and Jack had been on a mission together, just the two of them. Figured it had to be this one. He wished he could enjoy spending time with Jack, because it was one of his favorite things... but staring at Kent's face on the tablet in front of him while he looked at the intel for the mission was kind of distracting.

And Mac's mind tried to take him back to _that_ day but he fought it, trying to focus on the mission details in front of him, hands trembling for a moment until he clenched them into tight fists. "You're staring," Mac pointed out, eyes not leaving his screen, but he glanced up when Jack didn’t say anything. His partner regarded him from the seat across from him with an odd expression on his face. "What?"

"It's just... man, there's somethin' off about you." Jack said, after a moment’s hesitation. "That guy has you rattled and it's not just him being an asshole."

Mac was shocked at how hard the truth tried to surge up out of him, but he clamped down on it at the last second and shoved it away. "I told you, I'm good." He tried on a smile, but it felt stiff. "If I'm not I'll let you know."

The rest of the flight was almost normal, with Jack acting like a dork—no doubt in an attempt to distract Mac from thinking about Kent, which he appreciated more than Jack would (or could, without ending their friendship) ever know. They landed in Bucharest without incident and caught a cab into the city center, heading straight for the hotel where Kent was staying before he left for his ill-fated exfil.

They had no other leads, so it seemed like a decent place to start. And if Mac pretended hard enough, he could make himself believe it was any other mission, and that was something he needed to do desperately, to put everything away for now. Anything less than Mac’s best effort could put them in danger and Mac flat-out refused to let Jack get hurt or worse because Mac’s head wasn’t in the game.

But there was a small, selfish part of him that hoped they _wouldn’t_ find Kent.

“Kent was staying in room thirty-eight,” Riley informed them over their in-ear comms, which they’d turned on as soon as they’d deplaned. “According to the hotel’s database he didn’t check out before he left for exfil yesterday. Maybe he had a feeling it was going to go bad.”

Mac and Jack walked into the hotel with the easy confidence of guests who had already checked in, because the best way to blend in was to pretend like you belonged. Once they got up to the third floor, Mac pulled out the universal keycard he’d had Riley program for him after he and Desi got into a jam in Montreal.

Mac told Jack about that mission as they walked down the hall, ending with, “So long story short, that’s the last time I tried to make my own universal keycard on the fly—I thought Desi was going to skin me for burning her wallet.”

They got to Kent’s door, and as Mac moved to use the keycard to open the door Jack reached for his arm to stop him. When Mac glanced at him, Jack simply arched an eyebrow before drawing his gun and pointing at the door, and Mac felt his heart flutter. He’d missed missions with Jack, missed working with him and basking in their natural camaraderie. He opened the door and Jack went in first, gun raised to clear the room, and Mac followed him inside.

As soon as the door closed behind him, someone jumped out of the closed closet near the entryway and wrapped an arm around Mac’s throat from behind, the muzzle of a gun digging into his skull. “Who are you and what fucking government sent you after me?” his attacker growled, and the sound of that voice took Mac years backward and he could do nothing but freeze, a sick feeling spreading from his core to the rest of his body.

Jack moved between blinks, pointing his gun at Kent’s head; Mac knew he could make the shot, and would trust him to do it. “Hey, easy! We’re here to help you, let him go.”

Mac felt it when Kent hesitated, the gun barrel wavering, so Mac brought his arm up quickly and grabbed Kent’s wrist, twisting the gun up toward the ceiling before bringing their arms down in a sharp outward arc, forcing Kent to either let go of the gun or get his arm broken. Before the gun dropped to the floor, Mac was already pivoting to elbow Kent in the gut to get him to let go of his neck. It was probably more violence than the situation called for, but since Kent _had_ put a gun to his head Mac figured Jack wouldn’t ask too many questions.

Kent doubled over, coughing. When he looked up he grinned at Mac, not necessarily in a nice way. “Private MacGyver, as I live and breathe! You grew up quite a bit, didn’t you?”

“It’s Agent MacGyver now,” Mac replied, keeping his tone brusque. His feet made a decision for him, stepping closer to Jack and away from Kent. “This is Agent Dalton. We’re here to get you and your intel to the border.”

“Well, this was unexpected, but it’s nice to see a familiar face,” Kent said, like he and Mac were old war buddies. He grabbed his weapon off the carpet and holstered it. “I’m presuming you boys were told what happened to my last exfil—what’s the plan?”

“I steal a car and we drive you to the border,” Mac said, some of the tension leaving him now that Kent put his gun away. He could tell Jack was worried about him even though his partner was watching Kent—it was an instinctive thing, one that ran both ways. He took a breath and forced himself to shoulder past Kent to the door. “Grab your shit. We’ll go find a vehicle.”

He felt Kent’s gaze on him like a physical thing as he left the room, trailing from the back of his head all the way down to his ass.

 

~***~

 

“Still as resourceful as ever, I see,” Kent murmured to himself after Mac left, before he turned toward the bed to get his things.

Jack almost told him to shut up. There was something about the dude that made his skin crawl, and he didn’t miss the way Kent’s eyes had trailed up and down Mac’s body. He followed Mac into the hallway without conscious thought, not surprised to see Mac was already practically to the elevators.

He tensed at the sound of Jack’s footsteps but relaxed when he turned enough to see who was approaching him. “Is he coming or what? We can’t stay here much longer, I’m sure whoever blew up that chopper is still looking for Kent.”

Jack turned his comm off and reached out to do the same to Mac’s. “Dude, what is going on?” he asked in a hushed voice, looking at Mac intently. “You keep saying you’re fine, but honestly, man, I don’t think you are. And whatever beef you’ve got with Kent, it’s making you act like… not you.”

And if Jack was concerned before, he only got more alarmed when Mac’s eyes filled with tears in response to his question. “I can’t tell you—not right now, okay? Please, just… back me up? And don’t listen to anything Kent says, he lies like breathes.”

“I will _always_ back you up, you know that,” Jack said, internally cursing everyone in Mac’s past who didn’t. “I have your back, don’t worry about that.”

Mac managed a smile at that, but it flattened out again and Jack knew without turning to look that Kent was coming toward them. Before he got there, Mac reached out quickly to squeeze Jack’s arm—not his shoulder, Jack noted dully, because Kent could see that. “Thank you, Jack,” he said softly, and then he was turning to face the opening elevator.

“All set,” Kent declared, and they piled inside the elevator. Where, naturally, Kent tried to crowd Mac into a corner.

Jack saw him moving from the corner of his eye and thought _oh hell no_ , physically and unsubtly shoving himself between Kent and Mac. He felt Mac’s fingers dig into his back above his belt and knew he made the right choice when Mac exhaled shakily against his neck.

And Kent might’ve been many things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. “So you two seem… close,” he commented, leaning against the wall of the elevator like that was what he intended to do in the first place. “Tell me, Dalton, how do you like working with MacGyver? Isn’t he… special?”

Jack felt his right hand twitch down by his leg, wanting to reach for his gun but leashing the impulse. The tone of Kent’s voice, the emphasis he put on _special_ … it made Jack’s blood boil, something old and ugly crawling down his spine. He wasn’t stupid either, far from it, and he knew it was up to him to carry the conversation since the way Mac was literally trying to claw a hole in his back indicated he wasn’t in a good place.

“It’s been great, man,” Jack said, his tone casual, but he knew his eyes were hard with anger. He could’ve turned that off but didn’t, mostly because he didn’t want Kent getting the impression that they could be pals. “He’s the best operative I’ve ever worked with.”

When the elevator made it to the lobby, Jack ushered Mac out ahead of him and Kent, once again using his body as a buffer between them.

“I can imagine,” Kent said as they crossed the lobby and emerged on the sidewalk. “He was always so entertaining to watch back during our time together, always coming up with some brilliant new idea or invention. Didn’t make him too popular with some of the boys—that’s why I took it upon myself to show him the ropes.”

Everything coming out of Kent’s mouth sounded wrong, and ahead of Jack, Mac’s step faltered. It was barely visible and Kent didn’t notice, but Jack never missed things like that about his partner. “As much as I love the reminiscing, we should focus on getting out of here,” he said, forcing his tone to stay conversational. “Any idea how you got made in the first place?”

Kent frowned, as if he didn’t like being reminded of his own failure. “I’ve been trying to figure that out myself. The only thing that makes sense is that someone who knew about the mission sold me out—either for the guns or money, no doubt.”

Jack grunted an affirmation and watched as Mac used his Swiss Army Knife to jimmy the lock on the driver’s door of an old sedan. He climbed inside and popped the panel off the steering column to hotwire the vehicle. “Get in,” he said to Jack and Kent. “Quick, before someone sees us.”

Jack moved first, so Kent had no choice but to slide his slimy ass into the backseat, and after Mac got the car started he moved to the passenger’s seat so Jack could take the wheel. The sedan was clunky and ancient but it shifted gears okay, and soon they were on the road.

 

~***~

 

One thing about Kent that was true both back in the army and now: he couldn’t keep his mouth shut for more than two minutes. “Cute knife,” he commented from behind them. “No gun?”

“Don’t like them,” was all Mac said. He checked the map app on his phone and directed Jack to the road they needed to get out of Bucharest and head south.

“Besides, that’s what he’s got me for,” Jack added, and the grin he aimed at Kent in the rearview mirror was all teeth.

“Interesting,” Kent said. “There’s so much more you can accomplish when you have a gun, though. I can’t imagine that knife of yours coming in handy in a life-or-death situation.” Mac wasn’t facing him but he could hear the smirk in his voice, and had to jam his hands between his thighs and the seat to hide their shaking. “I mean, what happens when Dalton’s not around? What if someone with a gun… attacks you? I don’t see that little pigsticker being of much use to fend them off.”

“I don’t know, man, I’ve seen that knife do some serious damage to wires and shit, he keeps it pretty sharp.” Jack was forcing good ol’ boy cheer into his voice, exaggerating his accent like Mac knew he did when he hated an op. “Remember that time you stabbed that dude’s eye out, Mac?”

“Hard to forget,” Mac replied, staring out his window and thanking every God he could think of that Jack Dalton was his partner.

Thankfully Kent shut up as they left Bucharest, and soon civilization was replaced by farm fields and the occasional derelict-looking hamlet. However, the silence was short-lived, because almost as soon as they were alone on a two-lane road a pair of big black SUVs roared up behind them, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Looks like your friends are back,” Mac said to Kent, twisting around to get a better look at what they were dealing with. As he did, he happened to catch Kent’s eye and couldn’t stop a grimace from crossing his face. “Jack, they’re gonna try to run us off the road— _and_ they’re pulling out machine guns, super.” There was nothing in the car to improvise a weapon with, and shooting back with handguns would just be a waste of bullets unless someone got insanely lucky.

“Hey, what about that place?” Kent asked, pointing out a low-to-the-ground building with boarded-up windows and a large parking lot—an abandoned restaurant, if Mac’s Romanian was still good. “We might have half a chance if we can find some kind of barricade.”

Mac didn’t need to look at Jack to know neither of them was crazy about the idea, but they didn’t have the luxury of options. Jack made a sharp turn and stood on the brakes to avoid hitting the building and they piled out of the sedan, Kent and Jack both returning fire as they ran for cover. It didn’t occur to Mac that an abandoned restaurant with boarded-up windows wouldn’t have an unlocked door until it was too late.

As soon as they got inside the shooting stopped, and Kent was pointing his gun at Mac and Jack.

Everything clicked in Mac’s mind like the pieces of a puzzle. “You never got made,” he gritted out, staring at the gun while Jack seethed beside him. “You just switched sides.”

And worse, Mac counted Jack’s shots in his head (something he did whenever possible) so he knew his gun was empty; Jack had another magazine, of course, but reloading was hard to do when someone was already threatening you. From the triumphant expression on Kent’s face he wasn’t going to buy a bluff.

“Very good, MacGyver—you always were a quick study,” Kent said, leering at him now that he was protected behind a weapon. “So unless you’d like my friends out there to turn you into Swiss cheese through that abysmally thin wall behind you, you’ll start walking toward the back.”

He gestured with the gun for them to turn around, and slowly they did, walking with Kent at their backs through the dining room and kitchen of the restaurant. Mac was doing his best to stay calm despite the fact that he could feel himself sweating.

And he was fine, he was good—until he saw the room Kent was forcing them into and balked like a horse getting its reins pulled, Jack almost running up his back and making them both stumble inside. It was less of a room and more like a storage closet, with a high ceiling and rows of shelves on all sides, everything covered in dust and cobwebs.

“You bastard,” Mac said, and he wanted it to be angry but instead it sounded resigned. He turned to look at Kent, who was already closing the door to lock the two of them in there. “We’re going to find you. You won’t get away with this.”

“Good luck with that,” Kent said, winking. “And good luck explaining yourself to your partner, _Angus_.”

And then he was gone, the heavy door bolted from the outside.

 

~***~

 

Jack swore under his breath once the door was closed, doing a quick turn around the storage closet to gauge their surroundings. Then he pulled the extra clip for his gun out of the inner pocket of his jacket, dropping the empty clip and reloading with the new one. Next he checked the door, which was indeed locked from the outside and didn’t seem like it would budge.

“I don’t suppose there’s something in here you can use to get us out of here,” Jack said, and turned to look at his partner when he didn’t get a response. That was about the same time Mac backed into a row of shelves and slid down them to sit on the floor. His eyes were fixed on Jack’s gun and an honest to God whimper left him as Jack crossed the short distance between them. “Mac? Hey, man, what’s wrong?”

As soon as Jack was close enough to touch, Mac leaned away, saying in a voice that was little more than a whisper, “Please, don’t.”

Jack followed Mac’s sightline, and dread was suddenly a living thing trying to crawl up Jack’s throat. He holstered the gun and crouched down across from Mac, holding his hands out to his sides to show they were empty. “Okay, it’s all right, I put the gun away. I’m not gonna hurt you—I’d never do that.”

Mac’s gaze snapped to Jack’s face and he blinked a few times. “I know, I know.” But that moment of clarity was short-lived, and he curled in on himself further, eyes seeing something in the middle distance that Jack couldn’t. “Jack, please, I…”

Jack had zero idea what he was dealing with beyond the fact that Mac was scared, and he wanted Jack to fix it. Absently, Jack was glad they hadn’t turned their comms back on after the hotel, because this was bad enough Mac wouldn’t want the others to know. “I’m right here,” he said in his best soothing voice, inching closer—close enough to set a tentative hand on Mac’s shoulder, breathing a sigh of relief when he didn’t flinch away. “Nothing’s gonna happen, Mac—I’ve got you, just like always.”

Mac’s breathing seemed to come easier, and he drew his knees in closer to his chest. He ran the fingers of both hands through his hair almost violently before folding his arms on top of his knees and burying his face in the sleeve of his jacket. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, none of that,” Jack said, scooting over until he was sitting next to Mac and could get an arm around his shoulders. “I didn’t like that guy from the word go, especially not after everything you said about him… so I might’ve planted one of Riley’s little tracking doo-dads on him back at the hotel. We’ll get him, don’t worry.” Mac lifted his head to shake it a little, and something inside Jack cracked at the sight of him looking so miserable. “C’mere,” he muttered, using his other arm to pull Mac into an actual hug, albeit a slightly awkward one since they were two grown men sitting on the ground. “You can tell me anything and I’m not gonna judge you—you know that, right?”

But Mac just shook his head again. “If I tell you… you’ll never look at me the same way again.”

Jack swore he felt his heart break. Despite all the shit they’d been through—and there was a lot—he’d never seen Mac look like this, wounded and sad, and it terrified him. “No way, man. Not gonna happen.”

Mac’s lower lip trembled before he sucked it into his mouth to stop it. He ran a shaky hand over his face and stared intently at a rip in the knee of Jack’s jeans. “I… Kent and I, we knew each other better than I let on. That thing he said, about him taking me under his wing? It was sort of true—he was just an ass about it. Liked to teach his lessons by creating unwinnable scenarios, that kind of thing.” He paused, digging his nails into his palms. “Would you believe I actually used to be a good shot with a gun? Not as good as you, but better than Kent. He… didn’t like that much, especially not after I got a commendation for making an improvised repair to my gun in a hot zone.”

Jack had a feeling there was more to this story, and whatever it was couldn’t be good… but he also couldn’t stop thinking about Mac being good with a gun. He always assumed Mac had basic weapons training, he had to, but he also assumed he’d just… never used them after that. It also hit him in that moment that Mac had never really told him _why_ he didn’t use guns; when Jack asked about it a long time ago Mac had just said he didn’t like them and Jack dropped it, never wondering about it again until now.

Mac took a stuttering breath and curled further into Jack. “Sometimes I’d catch Kent… watching me, when he thought I wasn’t looking. And then he’d say something that would almost sound like flirting, except it had this edge to it that I could never put out of my head. I mean, I know I’m not always super perceptive when it comes to that stuff, but I’d had guys hit on me before. This was… different.” He was still staring at that patch of skin beyond the fibers of Jack’s jeans, and his eyes were filling with tears. “And then one day Kent asked me to help him get something out of the storage area on base—some cases of gun oil, I think, those are heavy. He wasn’t my favorite person, but he was also my lieutenant, you know? And if I said no, he was totally willing and able to make the rest of my day miserable… so I went with him. Only once we got to the storage room—which looked a lot like this—he… shut the door, and locked us in together. And then he drew his gun.”

Jack tensed up, because what Mac was saying sounded like it was going in a certain direction and it _couldn’t_ go in that direction, it couldn’t have happened, not to Mac. And Jack found he couldn’t speak—like he literally couldn’t, he opened his mouth and took in a breath but nothing came out.

“He pointed the gun at me, at my head, and told me to…” Mac had to pause again, the tears in his eyes slipping down his face silently. “He made me blow him until he came, then he pistol whipped me until he could get me on the floor…” He gulped in a deep breath. “If someone hadn’t come along looking for extra t-shirts he would’ve… made it worse.”

Jack was frozen, still holding Mac but staring at a fixed point on the opposite wall, his heart pounding wildly in his chest. His mind went back to Kent and the way he looked at Mac, the way he smirked, how he called Mac _special_. It made Jack’s stomach turn, and he idly wondered if he was going to be sick as fury spread through his body.

Beside him, Mac took in another shaking breath and tried to untangle himself from Jack’s hold. “I… I know this changes everything and that you probably hate me right now,” he choked out. “I understand.”

“I’m gonna kill him.” It was the first thing Jack said in a while, and the words came out last with every bit of rage and horror he felt on the inside. His arms squeezed Mac, but not threateningly, more like a reflex response to him trying to get away. He looked at Mac, then, and couldn’t hold back the tears burning his own eyes.

“I’m so sorry, Jack,” Mac whispered, face crumpled at the edges. He tried to get away again, although not very hard. “I never… I’ll back off.”

Mac’s words finally started to penetrate the ringing in Jack’s ears, and he turned so they could be eye-to-eye and took Mac’s face in his hands. “You listen to me—that’s not what I want, that will _never_ be what I want, okay? What happened to you is not your fault, Mac, and I would trade places with you in a second if I could. I am so damn sorry I wasn’t around to help you then, and that you didn’t think you could tell me.” He didn’t ask _why_ Mac thought that, mostly because he figured it was none of his business but also because he was a little afraid of the answer. Did he… did Jack remind Mac of Kent somehow, always waving his gun around like an idiot?

“But you… I should’ve fought back, done something.” The word stumbled from Mac’s usually eloquent mouth. Then, quieter: “Why don’t you hate me?”

Jack shut his eyes momentarily and swallowed hard, because having a breakdown over this was the last thing Mac needed. “I could never hate you, Mac. There’s not a thing you could tell me that would make me hate you.” _What’s the opposite of hate again?_ a voice drawled in the back of his head, but he ignored it. “And as for not fighting back, there isn’t a helluva lot you can do with a gun to your head, especially when you know the person behind it is crazy enough to shoot you.” He realized belatedly that he hadn’t let go of Mac’s face, but Mac wasn’t pulling away and Jack wasn’t sure he could move anyway, he was so tense from holding back the urge to hit something.

“I’m… really sorry, Jack. I should’ve told you before, but I…” Mac trailed off, turning his gaze away, hands trembling again where they were resting on his own leg.

“You… what?” Jack asked, and his thumbs moved of their own volition, wiping away the tear tracks on Mac’s cheeks. One of his hands left Mac’s face in favor of covering both of Mac’s, and their shaking ceased immediately. “Did I… was there something I did, or said, that made you think you couldn’t tell me? Because if that’s the case, I’m an even bigger idiot than we thought.” He managed a weak smile that faded almost instantly. “Please tell me I don’t remind you of that bastard.”

Mac shook his head. “No, no, never.” He stared at Jack with huge eyes. “You’re nothing like him. But I thought… I was afraid of losing you because of this.”

“Are you kidding? I hate to break it to you, Mac, but you’re kinda stuck with me unless you tell me to beat it,” Jack said, using the hand that was still on Mac’s face to push the hair out of his eyes. And that was a gesture that could be read as not platonic, and he was hoping like hell this wouldn’t be the moment Mac’s big brain would figure out the secret Jack’s been keeping since the Sandbox. “Can’t get rid of me that easy. I’m like a fucking boomerang, I always come back.”

“Thank you, Jack,” Mac said, soft and sincere. He’d lost some of the panic in his face, which was good. “I’ve never… you’re the first person I’ve told about all this.”

“You don’t have to thank me for anything, but you’re welcome anyway,” Jack replied. “You’re… I’ve always thought you were tough, but I had no idea.” And he had no idea what his own face looked like at that moment, so he had no context for the look in Mac’s eyes, all astonished and… gorgeous, God, his eyes were so _blue_.

There was a click in both their ears, and Riley’s voice shook them back to reality: “Guys? You haven’t checked in in a while and your comms were off—what’s your status?”

Jack winced, glancing at Mac as they got to their feet. “Uh, about that…”

“Dalton,” Matty said in her Director Webber voice. “Please don’t tell me you lost Kent.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you,” Jack said breezily. “Actually, it turns out he was a traitor who set us up and almost shot us.”

Silence on the other end for a few seconds, and then Riley spoke. “You guys okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re good—just working on some details,” Jack said, and it was mostly true, if one considered being locked in a storage room a detail.

Mac breathed out and shut his eyes, and when he opened them again he sounded almost normal. “We’re locked in a storage room in an abandoned restaurant. Jack managed to put one of your trackers on Kent before we lost him. Riley, can you find him while I figure out a way out of here?” He started doing what he did best, looking around the room for anything useful; he glanced at the door and did a double-take before letting out an exasperated sigh. “I’m an idiot. The hinges are on the inside of the door—they’re industrial grade which means the screws are hidden, but I can make an acid to eat through the metal and that should let us leverage the door open.”

Five minutes later they had the door open, and Riley was saying, “Okay, according to the tracker Kent is heading southwest—looks like he might be trying to get to the border with Serbia.”

“That’s bad,” Mac said. “I read that file you gave me. The Serbs have been trying to get in on this gun smuggling operation for years now. Kent’s going to sell the information he has to them once he’s out of Romania.”

Luckily, in their haste to get away Kent and his apparently Serbian goons left the old sedan untouched—all Mac had to do was spark the wires and it ran. He took some stuff that looked like random junk from the restaurant to Jack and threw it in the backseat, and then they were off to the races.

 

~***~

 

“Looks like they’re slowing down,” Riley reported about ten minutes later. “They’re near a town called Alexandria—but why are they stopping?”

“I don’t care,” Jack said, and there was enough danger in his tone that Mac glanced at him. “Whatever it is, it’ll help us catch Kent.”

“Uh oh,” Mac said, spotting a commotion on the side of the road, the two SUVs from earlier parked haphazardly in a field bordered by forest. “Looks like Kent’s Serbian buddies turned on him.” They were getting ready to shoot him, in fact, and Mac found that grimly ironic. He’d been tinkering with something in his lap for the duration of the drive, and now that he was done he said to Jack, “Park here, we’ll have to walk in quietly. I can use this—” he held up the device he’d improvised “—to blow their cars, and that should distract them long enough for us to get Kent out of this mess.”

They got out of the sedan and snuck up close to the SUVs so Mac could plant the IED, and then they ran for cover while the vehicles exploded in twin balls of gasoline-fueled flame. The blast knocked Mac off his feet since he was closer to it than Jack, and as soon as the Serbians were dead or knocked out Kent was up and breaking into a run, disappearing into the forest with Jack hot on his heels.

By the time Mac caught up to them Jack and Kent were rolling on the forest floor and hitting each other, and he arrived in time to see Jack get the upper hand and just start… beating Kent’s face in. Like with both fists and a lot of blood, hammering away with no finesse. Mac realized then that Jack would kill Kent despite the mission, so he raced up and grabbed Jack from behind under the arms, pulling him backward. “Jack, hey—stop, you’re gonna kill him!”

“I told you I was gonna kill him and I meant it!” Jack growled, struggling against Mac’s hold. “Let me go, Mac!”

Kent spat blood and struggled to sit up, a smirk on his lips. “Try using your gun, Dalton—MacGyver will do anything you want him to then.” That was enough to make Mac’s grip on Jack go slack, and Jack overbalanced and fell over; Kent used the opening to lurch up and tackle Mac around the waist, punching in the jaw and kicking out to fend off Jack, hitting him in the stomach with his foot. Then he was on top of Mac, straddling his waist and getting ready to belt him across the face as he said, “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue? Haven’t seen you this quiet since you choked on my—”

He was cut off when Mac jammed the blade of his Swiss Army Knife into his stomach and pushed it upward as hard as he could, unzipping Kent’s torso from the front like a jacket. He made an awful gurgling sound before his body collapsed on top of Mac, who clutched the hilt of his knife tightly and struggled to get the body off himself before Kent’s entrails decided to spill everywhere. But suddenly the weight was gone, Kent tossed aside by Jack, who put his hands around Mac’s shoulders to pull him up into a sitting position to check him for injuries. And Mac couldn’t help his reaction—he threw his arms around Jack’s neck and hugged him tightly, shivering as Jack returned the embrace without hesitation.

After a moment Jack pulled away enough to hold Mac’s face in his hands. “Mac, hey, talk to me—are you hurt?”

Mac furrowed his eyebrows but shook his head. “No, I’m okay. He hit me once, that’s it.”

“Guys, are you okay?” Riley asked, and Mac had a moment of panic where he wondered if she heard what Kent had said, but if she did she gave no indication. “What happened?”

“We’re good, Riles,” Jack said, thumb brushing absently across Mac’s cheekbone. “Kent’s dead, though. We’ll get back to you in a sec, okay?” He moved a hand to shut off both their comms. “You sure you’re okay?” A tiny note of teasing: “What happened to not killing him?”

Mac huffed out a laugh. “He kinda didn’t give me a choice, Jack.” He had blood all over him, on his hands and arms and face, and couldn’t help how he frowned when he ran a hand through his hair to get it out of his face and wound up staining it red. “Gross.” He noticed the way Jack was looking at him, one hand still touching Mac’s face… but there was no way it could mean what Mac wanted it to mean, right? “Jack? Can you… please, don’t tell anyone about what happened to me?”

“Of course not,” Jack said, smiling at him. “Whatever you want.”

He turned on their comms again in time to catch the tail end of a Matty rant: “… I swear to God, Dalton, I will rip out your spine and hand it to you if you don’t tell me what happened!”

“I killed him, Matty,” Mac said, before Jack could try and take the blame, which he totally would. “He ran, and when we caught up to him he came at me—I didn’t have a choice.”

Matty was quiet for several beats before she said, “Well, the important thing is that the intel didn’t get into the wrong hands. And since Kent betrayed his country, I don’t think anybody will be crying about his death. Get on a plane and get home, you two.”

 

~***~

 

And they did, on the same plane that brought them to Bucharest only a few hours ago. Luckily there was a full bathroom on board so Mac was able to wash off Kent’s blood and change his clothes. Jack tried to catch a nap during the flight but Mac wasn’t going to attempt sleeping because he knew what his dreams would be about. They got to do the debrief on the plane, so when they landed in LA—where it was the same day as when they left, the sun just going down—they were free to go home.

“You wanna come over for a beer?” Mac asked on the way to the car, forcing himself to sound casual when in reality the thought of rattling around in the house by himself was kind of terrifying.

Jack agreed, maybe a little took quickly, and they went back to Mac’s place.

After they both kicked off their boots and dumped their bags, Mac went to the fridge and pulled out a couple beers. “Pizza?” he suggested, wondering if he could eat without throwing up. With Jack there? Probably.

Soon enough they were out on the deck, sitting side-by-side next to the fire pit, mostly silent as they ate and drank. And Mac… got kind of lost in his own head, because as much as he wanted to and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t stop thinking about both what happened in Romania that day and many years ago with Kent.

Jack nudged Mac’s knee with his own, grinning in that loose and easy way that always made Mac smile back. “Hey, where’d you go? Don’t make me retell the part of this story where Desi kicks my ass, man. It’s been years and it still smarts.”

Mac loves that grin and Jack in general, and he didn’t think he could’ve gotten through meeting Kent again if it wasn’t for Jack. Jack, who backed him up without a doubt and shielded him from Kent when he needed it before he knew the truth. “I wish I’d met you sooner,” Mac breathed out, eyes going wide when he realized he’d said that out loud.

Jack’s grin softened at the corners, becoming even more sincere. “Hey, same here,” he said, draining the last of his beer. “Maybe then we wouldn’t have punched each other for our introductions.”

“No, I’m pretty sure we would’ve,” Mac said with a grin, relieved that Jack didn’t think he was weird for saying that out loud. But the grin slipped from his lips because he thought of how things could’ve been different if he’d known Jack then, but he shakes it away as quickly as it came—no point in dwelling on the past.

“I would’ve killed him,” Jack said quietly, almost like he could read Mac’s mind, which sometimes he pretty much did. “He would’ve had a terrible friendly fire accident, or I would’ve just broken his neck with my bare hands.”

Mac’s heart was about ready to burst from how much affection he was feeling, and when Jack turned his head to look at him there was that expression his face again, the one that Mac couldn’t decipher. He couldn’t have said who leaned in first, but the next thing he knew their lips were pressed together, feather-light and slightly chapped (Romania was windy). That first touch was so tentative that it could’ve been ruled accidental if either of them had wanted that, but they didn’t, Mac sinking into the kiss far enough that he had to put a hand on Jack’s shoulder for balance.

Jack wrapped his arms around Mac, one arm snaking around his waist while the other moved to press his palm flat against Mac’s back. The kiss was soft, and slow, and Mac couldn’t believe it was happening, like his brain physically couldn’t compute the inputs it was receiving: the gentle but firm touches of Jack’s hands, the way his lips felt against Mac’s, how they both tasted like beer and pizza and that was kind of disgusting but it didn’t matter because Mac was _kissing_ Jack. And more than that, Jack was kissing _back_ , like he wanted this as bad as Mac did. Mac licked at Jack’s bottom lip and he opened up immediately, the kiss getting deeper for a few beats before air became a necessity.

When they broke apart they didn’t go far, and Mac stared at Jack like he’d never seen him before. “You… I’m confused,” he admitted, which was something he rarely was save for in the occasional social situation. “I had no idea you—wow.”

“Yeah, that… makes two of us,” Jack agreed. “Looks like I’m a lot better at being subtle than I thought.”

Mac blinked. “Subtle?” he repeated, a laugh coming out on the tail end of the word. “Try nonexistent—I thought you were straight! And definitely not into me.” His eyebrows furrowed. “Wait… you still wanted to kiss me after everything I told you today?”

“Definitely not straight, darlin’.” The corner of Jack’s mouth twitched up in a smirk, but then he frowned. “Why wouldn’t I want to kiss you?”

“I just thought… I mean, the whole thing with Kent…” Mac gestured vaguely with the hand that wasn’t on Jack’s shoulder, because there was no way he was moving that as long as he was allowed to have it there. “I’m not… I’m kind of damaged, man. Especially when it comes to guys.”

Jack’s grip on him tightened, the hand that was on his back coming up to cup his cheek. “There’s nothing wrong with—wait, what do you mean by that?”

For the first time since the kiss Mac’s eyes cut away from Jack, his gaze going to the dwindling flames in the fire pit. “I’ve had… feelings for you for a long time,” he said. “And since I didn’t think there was a hope in hell you felt the same way, I used to go out with women and men. Women were fine, but men… sometimes I’d freak out. They’d say something, or do something, and I’d be back in that room with Kent. Which is why you never met any of them because it never went beyond a date or two.” He smiled self-deprecatingly. “People don’t like it when they go to touch your face and you have a panic attack.”

Jack stiffened, taking his hand away from Mac’s face like he’d been burned. “God, Mac, I’m so sorry.”

“What? No, Jack, I didn’t mean _you_.” Mac hesitated for a split second before he reached out, long fingers curling around Jack’s wrist. Another hesitation before he brought Jack’s hand back up, oh so slowly, to rest against the side of his face. “I’m not very good at this, in case you couldn’t tell… but any of the stuff I tell you about other people? It doesn’t apply to you. You’d never make me feel the way Kent did.”

“You sure?” Jack asked, thumb absentmindedly rubbing the skin of Mac’s cheek. “Because with me running around with guns all the time, I see how it could… remind you of him.”

But Mac knew Jack’s hands almost as well as he knew his own, from the scars on Jack’s knuckles to the way his trigger finger was rougher than the rest. “How many times have your hands helped me?” he asked, mouth curving upward affectionately. “Pretty sure I could be blind and deaf and I’d still know it was you touching my face. Or my shoulder, or my arm… or other things.” He shrugged a little, not intending that to sound flirty, but it kind of did anyway. “If you’re into that.”

Jack’s hand left his face in favor of wrapping around Mac’s shoulders, pulling him into a hug, Jack’s lips pressing a soft kiss behind his ear. “I’ll always be into anything involving you.”

Mac relaxed completely into the embrace, hugging Jack back. He was amazed, because despite the fact that they just kissed and that Jack knew about what happened with Kent, everything between them felt the same as always. Which was why Mac only felt the slightest prickle of embarrassment when he said, “I don’t think I can be by myself tonight.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jack said. “Wasn’t planning on leaving you alone anyway, so I’ll gladly get reacquainted with your couch.”

Mac’s couch was something Bozer picked out from a second-hand store and it was hardly comfortable for sleeping. “You, uh, don’t have to?” He winced when that came out like a question. “My bed’s pretty big. And you won’t need me to walk on your back tomorrow, like you would if you tried to sleep on the couch.”

Jack was quiet for a moment. “Are you sure? I don’t want to, you know, impose, or make it seem like I want to take advantage of you—which I don’t.”

His nervousness was endearing and only made Mac love him more. He smiled and shook his head, pushing himself to his feet and offering Jack a hand up. “It’s really okay, Jack. I wouldn’t have offered if it wasn’t.”

They walked to Mac’s bedroom hand-in-hand, before Mac broke away to rummage through his dresser. He produced some sweatpants and t-shirts that would probably be familiar to Jack, since they’d disappeared from his collection a while ago. When Mac caught Jack looking at them he blushed a little and felt the need to explain himself: “You leave clothes here all the time… I sort of thought if you wanted them back you’d let me know.” He caught a whiff of his own breath and made a face. “I’m gonna go brush my teeth before they get fuzzy.”

 

            ~***~

 

Jack changed into the clothes Mac left out for him, and when Mac came out of the bathroom they traded places. He had to try to ignore the way he felt when he saw a spare toothbrush waiting for him on the vanity. Because it was just a toothbrush, right? Common courtesy said when you had a guest stay the night you left out a toothbrush in case they didn’t have their own—Jack wasn’t raised in a barn, he knew that. But try telling that to his heart, which was doing backflips in his chest while he attempted to brush his teeth without accidentally knocking out a molar. And when he came back out into the bedroom he almost tripped over his own feet, because there was Mac, in bed, waiting for him—not like _that_ , obviously, but he was still a sight to behold in the low light from the lamp on the nightstand.

When Jack didn’t move or speak for a moment, Mac asked with worry in his voice, “What? Is something wrong?”

“Oh no, far from it,” Jack said, forcing himself to move and climb into bed beside him. “It’s just been… a really long day.”

“No kidding,” Mac agreed, and he turned out the light, letting them lay down side by side in the dark. They were close enough together that they could feel each other’s body heat but they weren’t actually touching. A beat passed, and then Mac blurted out, “Please tell me you don’t normally sleep on your back like a corpse.”

Jack laughed, loud and full, and just like that any tension was gone. He turned on his side to face Mac and said, “I just didn’t want to do anything you’re not comfortable with.”

“How about this,” Mac began, rolling on his side too so they were almost nose to nose. “You just… be you, and if you do something that bothers me I’ll tell you. Sound fair?”

“Yeah, okay,” Jack replied, hoping how choked up he felt wouldn’t be audible. He reached out and wrapped his arm around Mac’s waist, pulling him closer before leaning in to press a chaste kiss against his lips. He rolled on his back and tugged Mac with him to rest on his chest, and they fell asleep that way.

But a few hours later—Jack’s wasn’t sure what time it was but it was still dark out—something made Jack’s eyes snap open and he was suddenly wide awake. For a second he didn’t know where he was, but then he remembered the mission and Kent and Mac… Mac who was shaking against him? Was that what woke Jack up?

“Please, don’t,” Mac whimpered, his voice barely audible and completely broken. “No, please, stop.” He curled further into Jack, shaking violently, fist clenched around the material of Jack’s t-shirt. “Stop it, please.” He made a sound and Jack realized he was crying. “No, no, no, please…”

Given the events of the previous day, there was really only one thing Mac could be dreaming about. It didn’t escape Jack’s notice that Mac was clinging _to_ him instead of pushing him away, and as a test Jack attempted to shift away the tiniest bit and Mac whimpered again, one of his legs folding itself over both of Jack’s.

And since there was no world in which Jack Dalton would watch Angus MacGyver suffer and not do something about it, he ran what he hoped was a soothing hand down Mac’s back. “Mac, darlin’, you need to wake up—you’re having a bad dream.”

But Mac didn’t seem to hear him, and it looked like the nightmare was getting worse, his shaking increasing and his sobs getting louder. “Please, don’t—don’t make me, please, stop.”

Jack could feel himself tearing up, heart breaking into pieces, but he tried to wake Mac up again, talking a little louder than before. And Mac woke up, all right, with a choked-off scream that ended in him sitting up and aiming a flailing but surprisingly accurate punch at Jack’s face, which Jack deflected easily, grabbing Mac’s fist in his hand.

It took Mac a second of frantic panting and blinking sweat out of his eyes to say, “… Jack?” Shame flooded his expression. “Oh God, I’m so sorry, I should’ve know this was going to happen—”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jack cut him off, letting Mac snatch his hand away to wrap his arms around himself. As much as Jack wanted to hold his hand, he wasn’t sure if that was what Mac wanted at that moment. “It’s okay, you have nothin’ to apologize for.”

“I tried to hit you,” Mac said, scraping both hands through his hair, using the heel of one to scrub the tears from his eyes. “I hate myself sometimes.”

For a moment Jack felt like time stopped, his eyes going wide and his hands itching to touch, to comfort. “God, Mac why would you even say that? And don’t worry about that hit, it was nothing I couldn’t duck from.”

“I said it because it’s true, Jack,” Mac said, fatigue running through his voice. “Living in my head, sometimes it’s… not pretty. I don’t have a photographic memory, it’s not _that_ accurate… but I remember every single detail of being locked in that room with Kent. How he smelled, what the floor felt like, how much it… hurt. And I remember how… how the gun felt against my head when he smirked and made me…” He cut off, evidently unable to say it again. “And when he knocked me down I remember his hands on my belt, but that was when somebody showed up so he backed off. But I remember how much I hated myself for letting it happen at all, and how worthless I felt.” He dropped his gaze to the sheets beneath them. “I still do, actually.”

Jack took several deep, calming breaths, because there was no one for him to be angry with—Kent was dead, and the last thing he wanted was for Mac to think the agony-laced fury he was feeling was directed at him. Recalling what Mac said about doing what he’d normally do and relying on Mac to tell him if it was too much, Jack reached out, deliberately slow, to take one of Mac’s hands and hold it loosely. “I’m so sorry, Mac. I can’t imagine what it feels like to have that live in the back of your head, especially after today. But listen to me: you’re not worthless, far from it, and all that hate you’re directing at yourself… you don’t deserve it, Mac. You didn’t ‘let it happen’—” Jack used air quotes here “—you were forced into it, it wasn’t your fault. You’re the strongest person I know.”

Mac’s face was splotchy and red and he shook his head a little, still looking down, but he was squeezing Jack’s hand so hard he wondered if the kid was going to dislocate one of his knuckles. “I don’t feel strong,” he whispered, chewing on his lower lip as he glanced up at Jack. “I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to believe what you’re saying. I hear the words, but they don’t… seem like they apply to me, you know?”

Jack swallowed around the lump in his throat, lifting his other hand to cup Mac’s face so he’d look at him. “ _I_ believe what I’m saying and you know I’m a stubborn bastard, so I’ll do my best to make you believe it too. I made you like country music, didn’t I?” The joke was weak but it landed, the ghost of a smile appearing on Mac’s face. “I wish I could take all that pain away from you, Mac. If I could, I’d take it all on myself.”

“I know you would,” Mac whispered, and this—them making sacrifices for each other, hypothetically or otherwise? That was them in a nutshell. “I’d do the same thing for you, you know that.” Cautiously, almost like he was waiting for Jack to object, Mac clambered over to where Jack was sitting against the headboard and climbed into his lap, curling up with his head on Jack’s shoulder, all without letting go of his hand. “I just… I thought I put this behind me. I managed to go for weeks without thinking about it and… I just never expected to see him again.”

Jack wrapped his other arm around him, pressing a soft kiss against Mac’s hair. “You know,” he mused, “it’s probably a good thing you didn’t tell me what he did while we were on the plane.” When Mac glanced up at him questioningly, Jack smiled. “I would’ve ripped his face off as soon as we found him in that hotel, and then Matty would’ve been _super_ pissed.”

Mac smiled back, which was the goal. “Yeah, I think the only reason she forgave me for killing him was because he turned traitor.”

“Speaking of that, are you doing okay?” Jack asked. “You’re not exactly the killing type, especially up close.” Because sure, Mac’s explosions had killed plenty of bad dues, but stabbing someone and having their body fall on you was a completely different ball game. And while killing people could be hard, Jack personally considered killing up close the worst.

“I… think so?” Mac said, after debating it for a moment. “I mean, I didn’t see an alternative solution. The next punch he threw was going to break my nose, and with all the blood I would’ve been blind. And I knew he kicked you but I couldn’t see you, so I didn’t know if you were unconscious or not. I didn’t _want_ to kill him, even after what he did to me… but I also wasn’t going to let him do it again.”

Jack tensed at that idea. “I wouldn’t have let him, Mac. I would’ve torn his head off.”

“I know,” Mac replied, affection in his voice but a wry smile on his face. “You’ve, uh, described what would’ve done to him several times now.” He sounded amused, not scared, which was a definite improvement in Jack’s book. He blinked a couple of times and leaned over to look at the clock. “Did you want to try and go back to sleep? I don’t want to keep you up all night.”

“I don’t mind.” Jack ran a hand up and down Mac’s back again. “I’m guessing you don’t want to talk about the nightmare?”

Mac was shaking his head before Jack finished the question, so Jack slid down to lie on the mattress, and since Mac was in his lap he wound up lying on top of him. Sleep didn’t seem to be in the cards for the moment, and that was fine. A moment of silence passed, and then Mac asked haltingly, “So, um… I know how long I’ve wanted to kiss you. When did you decide you wanted to kiss me?”

Jack’s hand paused on Mac’s back, because how was he supposed to tell him Jack had wanted to kiss him for years, since the Sandbox? “Uh… about that…”

Mac tilted his head up to look at Jack and could guess what he wasn’t saying. “Yeah, me too. Once you stopped acting like such an asshole after we got paired up together, I thought you were hot—and then when you came back for another tour instead of going to Texas? I knew I was in trouble.”

“I was acting like an asshole because you were a smartass and a sarcastic little shit,” Jack drawled, a smile on his face. “And way too gorgeous for me to handle. That thing I told you after I stayed, that I did it for my country? That was bullshit, man. I did it for you, something nothing would happen to you, but also for myself. Being around you made me feel like a normal person, and not a shell. Like a man my pops could be proud of.”

Mac sat up a little while Jack was talking and touched his face once he was done. “I’m not denying that I had a role in you changing, but you did all the hard work yourself,” he said. “I saw it firsthand. And your dad would absolutely be proud of you—I know I am.”

Jack had to blink a few times, feeling himself tear up. “How did we get from talking about you to talking about me?”

“I like talking about you,” Mac said. He paused, clearly debating something before he spoke again, slower: “The nightmare… I was back in the room with Kent, only this time there was this like, I don’t know, Plexiglas wall? Something impossible to get through but transparent… and you were on the other side. I was begging him to stop, but you saw everything. What he did, it even worse… and the look on your face, you were so angry at me. And so disappointed.” He wasn’t looking at Jack while he talked, eyes tracing the pattern of the headboard, but his thumb was stroking through Jack’s stubble. “I know you already said that’s not how you feel, and I believe you, but it’s just hard, you know? I had myself convinced for years that if I told anyone—you, Bozer, anybody—that you’d just… not see me the same way anymore, and I couldn’t take that risk. I guess my brain isn’t ready to give up that scenario yet.”

“There’s nothing that could change the way I feel about you,” Jack said, knowing he was repeating himself from earlier and not giving a damn. He wondered how many times Mac had had a nightmare like that one and woke up alone. “I love you, Mac, so much.”

Mac glanced at Jack’s face, and whatever he saw there made him drop his hand from Jack’s cheek in favor of snuggling closer. “I love you too,” he admitted softly, like he was telling another secret. “It’s… better, with you here.” The hand that had been on Jack’s face dropped to curl around his bicep, fingers smoothing over a bullet scar.

“I’m glad,” Jack replied, just as softly, hugging Mac as tightly as he dared to. “And as long as you let me stick around, I’m not going anywhere.”

Mac yawned, settling his head on Jack’s chest and shutting his eyes. “I’m always going to want you around.”

And despite everything he fell back asleep, and so did Jack.


End file.
